Month: November 2002

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in quite a while. I’ve been caught up invarioustimeconsumingactivies and haven’t had five minutes to myself over the past week or so.

One of the things that really gets me down about my life is that I have yet to discover what I want to achieve with myself – what my final goal should be. I don’t see the light at the tunnel because I haven’t yet decided which tunnel to take and how far to walk down it. It’s one of the continuous, conscious thoughts that I have – perpetually in a state of wanting to try and achieve something, anything – and then trying to outdo that. Unfortunately it’s also very depressing to be in constant competition with oneself and the fact that this bothers me is most likely a flaw (should I claim that?) in my personality. For example, I am good with computers in general. I can apply myself to a wide variety of tasks with genuine interest and work at that for a while with some achievement. That is a handy skill but it’s also an unwanted distraction, because it leaves me with no clear scope for progression in any particular area – it’s a fog. When at a junction faced with 10 roads you err and umm about which one to take – with only one road you follow that with no second thought. I don’t know at the moment what I want to do with my life; where I’m headed or in fact if anything significant can or will come out of it.

I have been told that recently I’m becoming more isolated. Not socially (if anything I’ve become more outgoing), but emotionally and mentally. I’m often aggressive when I shouldn’t be; unsympathic and cold. I can also feel that and although it doesn’t bother me directly – I don’t want to see the relationships with my friends dither because of it, and should any of my friends read this I apologise. It’s not what I want, but I’m not entirely sure how to deal with it.

I’m not sure whether I’ve hit a low in my life. I hope not, but at the same time I can feel things bearing down. Admittedly when I am “stressed” I probably bring it unto myself. I do too much – but again my personality contributes to this, and again I can’t seem to put things off – I am always convinced that I have more time. That I waste too much time. That I can be better.

Why am I writing this? Quite simply to get it out of my system. I have good friends, but I don’t have any intimately close friends who I am comfortable talking at this level to. It’s ironic that the only solace I find is by posting this to an anonymous audience – but it’s an outlet and at the moment I need that. I’ve never had a diary – I tried once – but it didn’t achieve enough for me to keep writing to it.

However, while a pessimist for the moment in hand, I am an optimist for the horizon. Now I’ve written this, I can hopfully get back to doing whatever I happen to be doing. I know I’m smart enough to do something with my life – I just need to find out what, and hopefully every day when I wake up I’m just that bit closer to finding my own purpose.

It’s raining again. Bloody English weather. It taunts me by raining just before I go out anywhere.

I wonder if anybody’s ever done a study on whether it really is statistically more likely to rain just after you wash your car? It always seems to (people moan when we wash the cars as they walk past “oh bloody hell it’s gonna rain now thanks to you”. A quick spray with the powerwasher and they shut up).

It’s probably some coincidence – like, people wash their cars because of the change in air pressure that activates the wash car gland in the brain. Probably. We’ll never know if they don’t do the research…

Great. Yet another consultation on the use of mobile phones in cars. This one’s fairly obscure though. Took me ages to decipher this:

there is no justification for permitting exemptions from the requirement not to use hand-held phones.

Y’what?

Obscure language aside. The document is pretty clear about how it proposes prohibiting the use of mobile phones in cars. At this point it seems to make sense. Driving while dialling, sending a text message or holding one hand on a phone is going to obscure your attention to the road at some point, and is therefore a potential risk that could be easily removed (although arguably it’s already an enforced rule through the driving without due care claim).

However, the proposals include a general ban on personal hands-free phones, but not in-car hands-free. This is something I have a slight difficulty with. They blanket-ban all kits that are not “permanently wired into the vehicle” because they require pressing all sorts of buttons.

I drive quite a lot. I also get stuck in traffic a lot, and invariably get called quite a lot when I’m on the phone or need to make calls to advise people I’m going to be late, etc. A few months ago I went out of my way to buy a phone and a hands-free kit that specifically gave me the ability to dial out without any button-pressing. Behold the magic of voice dialling.

Speak ‘Abracadabra’ into my microphone (which, incidentally while I’m driving is always clipped in and positioned anyway), and I get a beep. Say the person’s name and it dials them. No buttons at all, I never look away from the road and my attention is where it should be. And this is worse than an in-car kit where it doesn’t explicitly say they won’t be pressing buttons?

The Flowers estate in Southampton is a lovely area. Between walking from Burgess Road and a friend’s house by the school I spotted three cars with windows smashed in. On the way home tonight there were loads of eggs all over the place.

Is it me or are youngsters (I’m talking 11-15 year olds) becoming real bastards recently? Was talking about this to a couple of mates in the pub. Back when we were Year 7 we’d never talk to the Year 11’s. They were huge and daunting and scared the shit out of us. Then – when we were Year 11, the Year 7’s would come up, hurl abuse and generally be little brats. Nowadays, you have 12 year old kids walking around throwing abuse, being general pains in the asses and not respecting anything. Am I the only one to have noticed this?